The present invention relates to a finishing technology in an image forming system by which a finishing is conducted in such a manner that a front sheet (called also a front cover) and a rear sheet (called also a rear cover) are inserted on the upper and lower side of a bundle of recording sheets on which images are formed, or a partition sheet is inserted between bundles of recording sheets.
As the finishing technology as described above, there is a technology disclosed in Japanese Tokkaisho No. 60-183459. In the technology disclosed in this official publication, the recording sheets delivered from the image forming apparatus are stacked on a stacking means. On the one hand, the sheets such as a front sheet, rear sheet, and partition sheet, are sent into the recording sheet conveyance path at a midway of the recording sheet conveyance path, and conveyed to the stacking means, and placed on upper and lower side of recording sheets. Further, the bundles of the recording sheets and sheets, stacked on the stacking means, are conveyed to the finishing section, and processed by stapling or punching.
In the finishing apparatus described in Japanese Tokkaisho No. 60-183459, because the processing from the image formation to the finishing is not systematized, when the finishing apparatus is used for, for example, a network printer, or high speed digital copier, there are disadvantages that its function is insufficient, and not appropriate for practical use. More specifically, this prior art finishing apparatus is very disadvantageous in the following points:
(1) The processing to insert the sheet into recording sheets, can not be conducted. Further, the insertion position when the sheet is inserted and the number of insertion sheets cannot be arbitrarily set.
(2) In an image recording operation which inserts the sheets into the recording sheets, the conveyance of the recording sheets and the inserting sheets in the finishing apparatus is not stably conducted, and conveyance failure or jamming easily occurs.
(3) Because the processing when the inserting sheet becomes insufficient is not satisfactory, when a shortage of inserting sheets occurs, image formation is stopped during the job.
(4) Because there is no function to use various sized or kinds of sheets, appropriate sheets can not always be used.
Accordingly, the object of the present invention is to solve the various problems described above and to provide a finishing apparatus and an image forming system having a high reliability, a high usability, and adaptability for a serial system for image formation and finishing.